Hospitals in parts of upstate New York will be able to conduct outpatient elective surgeries again, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday as he pledged to consider regional differences when re-opening the state’s outbreak-stalled economy. Hospitals in selected counties can resume elective outpatient treatments April 28 if a capacity benchmark is met and there have been fewer than 10 new COVID-19 hospitalizations in the county over the past 10 days. “We’re going to allow it in those hospitals and counties in the state that do not have a COVID issue or we wouldn’t need their beds in case of a surge,” Cuomo said at a briefing in Buffalo.

A tornado warning has been issued for Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as Nassau and Westchester counties until 3 p.m. as a storm system that brought similar warnings through the Southeast pummels the tri-state area. The rare warning came as radar notched 60 mph winds just east of the city. In addition to the tornado warning, a severe thunderstorm warning is in effect for all five boroughs of New York City, as well as Westchester County, until 3 p.m. The warning also applies to New Jersey’s Bergen, Hudson and Passaic counties, as well as Connecticut’s Fairfield County (until 3:15 p.m). Much of the region is under a severe thunderstorm watch until 5 p.m. (AP)

The streets are eerily quiet. Barely a soul walks by. But when Rabbi Shmuel Plafker arrives at the cemetery, it’s buzzing: Vans pulling in with bodies aboard, mounds of dirt piling up as graves are dug open, a line of white signs pressed into the ground marking plots that are newly occupied. Some of the few signs of life in this anguished city are coming from those tending to the dead. As the world retreats and the pandemic’s confirmed death toll in New York City alone charges past 10,000, funeral directors, cemetery workers and others who oversee a body’s final chapter are sprinting to keep up. Plafker, the chaplain at Mount Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island, grips in hands covered by rubber gloves the long list of burials he must preside over this day.

YWN regrets to inform you of the Petira of Hagaon HaRav Mendle Rabinowitz ZATZAL, the Rosh Yeshiva of Mesivta Keren Hatorah and head of Yeshiva K’tana of Lakewood. He was 70-years-old. The Rosh Yeshiva had been hospitalized in critical condition from COVID-19, and was Niftar on Tuesday afternoon. The Niftar took over as Rosh Yeshiva of Keren Hatorah after the Petira of his brother, Hagaon HaRav Moshe Z”L around 4 years ago. The loss of the Niftar is a tremendous to the Lakewood community. Additional information will be published when it becomes available to us. Boruch Dayan HaEmmes… (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

(by Rabbi Yair Hoffman for 5TJT.com) Today is Rav Avigdor Miller’s Yahrtzeit and he has a message that is remarkably pertinent today. Below are some quotes and summaries of what appears on the tape. Some 30 years ago, he described the Makos and what the Jews did at the time. [The Midrash Shmuel cites Midrashim that state: Al kol Makeh uMakeh haya meshamesh hadever – On each and every makeh there was a pestilence.] Although one of the makos was dever itself.. there was a dever with every makah. What is the significance of that? Because the Gemorah (Bava Kamma 60b) states dever baIr kanes raglecha – when there is an epidemic don’t go out and mix with people. Very important advice. Stay away from crowds. First of all not to donate your germs to others.

A New York Police Department employee died from coronavirus complications overnight, Commissioner Dermot Shea told CNN on Tuesday morning, marking the 31st reported coronavirus-related death within the NYPD. Shea didn’t name or provide additional details about the employee. About 13% of uniformed officers are out sick, which is “well over” regular sick out levels, Shea said, but noted today marks the 12th straight day of decreasing sick-out levels. “We are still very, very concerned about our members that are in the hospital … our thoughts and prayers are going out to them and to their families and really to the extended NYPD family as well,” he said. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

The attached videos are just some of the wonderful news that unfortunately gets drowned out is the avalanche of bad news. Bichasdei Hashem, many people have been released from the hospital, and many more are scheduled to be released. The following videos are just a sample of some of the good news. The first video was taken on Monday afternoon in Chicago, when Hatzalah Dispatcher R’ Yisroel Saacks returned home – after he was on a ventilator for three weeks. The following video is R’ Shia Frankel of Boro Park as he arrived home from the hospital, where he had once been listed in critical condition from COVID-19. The following video is R’ Nesanel Fried (Lakewood) returning home from the hospital where he was in critical condition.

State Senator Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, and Councilman Kalman Yeger today jointly announced that the NYC Department of Education has agreed to provide Kosher meals for pickup at select public school locations across Brooklyn and Queens.

Lev Rochel Bikur Cholim of Lakewood, NJ held a wildly successful plasma testing drive on Sunday, administering a whopping 1,000 plasma tests at a carefully arranged testing site outside Blue Claws Stadium. Lakewood Bikur Cholim has emerged as a trailblazer, becoming the first organization of its kind to arrange such testing after leading medical experts expressed that recovered COVID-19 patient blood plasma can save lives. Those who underwent the testing were required to have previously had genuine symptoms, be completely symptom-free for at least a week, and be willing to donate blood.

A US judge has found Grafton Thomas, charged in the anti-Semitic stabbing of 5 people – one who later died – in a Monsey Shul suffers from mental defect rendering him unable to assist in his defense. Judge Cathy Siebel wrote in a decision made public Monday that Grafton Thomas be committed to a treatment facility for no more than four months to determine if “in the foreseeable future he will attain the capacity to permit criminal proceedings to go forward against him.” “The defendant is suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent he is unable to assist properly in his defense”.